Cannibal
by Coffin Liqueur
Summary: Brief Lucas character study-y oneshot. Lucas finishes prepping a crow door. Clever, shady creatures, those crows.


Ingenuity. He was _aaaaaaall_ about ingenuity.

You forget where you hide your shit on the regular - one hell of a busy boy, these days, one hell of an active mind, one hell of a load of trouble keeping shit straight when your mind's all abuzz with a hundred and fifty new schematics, a hundred and fifty new games to play, a hundred and fifty new business deals to pass under a hundred and fifty new tables - then you may as well leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs.

When there ain't no bread in the house that ain't too damp to crumble, when aaaaaall the fresh food is meat?

Make do with little morsels of that.

And Lucas was well and done taking from the pantry. He was a free bird, now. He could pick his own scraps. He'd been retooling techniques and bits and bobs to his own methods since before the old man had ever shoved his into his hands. He gave Old Bastard Jack no credit for having taught him how to hunt, no more than he gave him for having taught him how to fish or how to ride a bike or even how to talk. He was Lucas goddamn Baker - grown-up child prodigy and born trickster, odd one outta the flock in a full paint job of black. He was a hundred percent inborn genius.

Birdies were hard to catch, more often than not, but it got easier when you found a few good spots spread out - minimizing overlap between Danger Zones. Got even easier when you considered the name "carrion crows" - the birds ate the same damn food that Mom and Dad ate, nowadays; there weren't no shortage of bait for him to steal away without it being missed.

Mama had caught one first, like the spider she was. Hammered it to the door of her shrine; he'd decided to reference it in his head as a _Bad News_ signal, nice and easy and fitting.

Then he'd caught another, and twisted off its head off a rush of curiosity, cocking his head sharp with great big eyes - waiting to see the results of a petty bit of rebellion through modification as if daring yourself not to get caught with your fingers in the cookie jar - as he fixed it to the first. Squawked a laugh and gave a slow, wondering, single clap of serendipitous satisfaction at the symmetry and drama of two open beaks mirroring each other in a double scream, each to one wing that stretched its respective way over the door. _No, no! Stay out!_

It almost brought to mind that good old riddle. _One of us lies - the other one tells the truth!_

_Which way do you take through the maze?_

It felt quite right.

He coulda caught another snake, or gone and laid out another few homemade traps for scorpions, for this next one - but nah, another crow seemed about right for this next marker. Bad News and that riddling image, this time worn like a decal. The logic was far less articulate than this in his head, but certainly more consistent.

He'd gone out before dawn. Laid out some fresh traps. Come back out by evening to watch birds flyin' black against the orange sky, pixellations of the shadows of the tree branches up above as they swayed in evening wind. Made his way up to the roof to join 'em, and to collect this project round's results.

Now here he was, again. It was dark and purple and cold outside by now. And he narrowed his eyes and scrunched his aquiline nose and snickered satisfaction again as he got this new set a' brothers set up with packing heat.

Old Jack didn't use the fucking mancave anymore. Enter the so-called-boy Lucas, makin' himself at home as king of more and more of the little nooks and crannies of the proverbial castle. Settin' up places for the stuff of destruction to roost till it, too, was ready to fly.

He stepped back from the door to the storage room now stashin' a launcher, hunched and with the sway of someone 'bout to stand up on one leg, hammer hanging from one hand off a half-limp wrist and nails fanning between clenched fingers on the other. A lip-lick finished with a sound like a clack in the corner of the back of his mouth as he narrowed his eyes with a scrutiny - passing 'em with little shuttery movements side to side across and underneath the new double-screaming sentinel.

And then a focusing of lenses to a grin. That cutting, curving _grin_.

Biggest crow of 'em all.

Taking off heads like a Highlander.

Killing the other crows to take their power.


End file.
